


Old Man Winter

by chewysugar



Category: Godzilla (2014)
Genre: Being Lost, Christmas, Family Feels, Gen, Good Godzilla, Japan, Older Sam Brody, Post-Godzilla Vs King Kong, Pre-Teen Sam Brody, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2019-08-19 23:23:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16544291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chewysugar/pseuds/chewysugar
Summary: After the end of it all, Sam Brody just wants a little peace and quiet. Searching for it one night brings him face to face with a creature right out of his family's past.





	Old Man Winter

**Author's Note:**

> So last holiday season I did a bit of a binge write. Most of what I penned took place around Christmas, and I'm going to try to repeat that again this year. Consider this the first in my Christmas Cracker. 
> 
> Also, I'm looking very much forward to the rest of the Monsterverse movies. Except Godzilla Vs. King Kong because I do not want harm to come to either of them.

Thirteen years old and Sam Brody wasn’t as full of piss and vinegar as most kids his age were. Granted, Sam’s parents despaired of his mood swings despite their completely understanding that he was a growing boy—not so much their little boy anymore. But still, he was generally a pleasant person to be around, if not with a touch of his burgeoning hormonal turbulence.

Really, at the bottom of it was just regular family dynamics. It was almost comical in its being so commonplace. The exception, of course, came on nights when things got out of hand: Sam would push back a little too hard, pressing his luck in the manner of all boys trying to assert some kind of independence and dominance in his life. Elle would lay down the law, Ford would try to keep the peace...

But they’d never unravel too much. That was the beauty of Sam Brody. He knew, compared to the way other preteens behaved, that his arbitrary skepticism and unflinching curiosity were as nothing compared to the raw rancor of his friends and peers. Still, arguing with Mom and Dad wasn’t exactly pleasant.

At present, they had little reason to bicker. They were on vacation—a rarity for anyone after The Rebuilding—and it was the Christmas season—something that nobody on Earth thought they’d ever live to see or celebrate again.

By all rights, everything should have been merry and bright. On the outside it proved to be: they’d registered at a popular tourist ryokan, nestled in the foothills of the Japanese Alps. As it was December, and as they were in Honshu, the air was perfectly frosty, the kind of air that refreshed the bloodstream whenever it was breathed in. The fields and slopes covered in majestic white snow that looked blue in the night.

Sam knew he should have been happy—and he was, for the most part. He’d only been a little boy when the Titans had clashed for dominance, but he still remembered terrible roars and bright blue flame; he still recalled the images on every surviving news station of nightmare beasts laying wastes to city and country. Perhaps those memories were why he observed the decorative byobu screens around the ryokan's reception area with no small degree of distaste.

“It’s beautiful, huh, buddy?” Ford, having collected their bags while Elle made some last minute adjustments to their reservation with the reception staff, noticed the screen paintings along one wall.

Sam pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “Yeah. It’s just…”

“Offensive?” Ford chuckled. The screens spanned several feet, and depicted, at first, the Alps themselves—mighty, majestic and beautiful, cloaked in clouds and mantled in white snow. But the further along the wooden screens one looked, the less idyllic the depiction became. An enormous moth appeared emerging from a valley forest; several inches from that, a gargantuan turtle stood among temples and pagoda-style homes.

“It’s rude,” Sam said after a moment. “I mean, yeah, it’s pretty, but shouldn’t they be treating the Titans with more respect?”

“They’ve got lots of respect for the Titans in these parts,” Ford sighed. A far away look came into his eyes.

Sam loved his father. He loved his mother too, but like every child, he had different things about his parents individually that he admired and aspired to. Ford was strong, even after all these years away from the Marines; tall, sturdy as a mountainside; his eyes gleamed kindly from out of a face surrounded by shaggy hair and a neatly groomed beard that was just starting to pepper with age.

Ford Brody was brave but kind. Unless provoked, he was less a grizzly and more of a teddy in the bear kingdom.

Watching his father’s thoughtful gaze, Sam felt a pang of guilt for all those times of late that he’d been snarky and too big for his britches. He gave his father’s bicep a quick butt with his forehead—a gesture that he’d adapted when flat out hugging his Dad had become too weird for someone his age.

Ford snapped out of whatever trance he was in, and smiled warmly at his son. “Watch it there, tough guy. I’m going to need that arm later.”

“Later, meaning now.” Elle hurried over. “You’re up, strong man.” She prodded at their bags with her boot. “Good thing this place doesn’t have any stairs.”

The Brody’s walked along the corridor towards the sliding door. Sam glanced at the walls, finding further depictions of Titans in the region. It didn’t exactly frighten him; the time had long past for those deadly conflicts. He even felt somewhat moved by the less monstrous of the beasts among the ukiyo-e’s. Rather, it was the fact that the images tunneled into his mind that weighed on him.

It was Christmas; this was a beautiful part of the world. Nobody should have to be reminded of that dark and dismal part of human history.

Elle looked over her shoulder, and gave her son a smile. “Happy to be back on land?”

“Mhm,” Sam mumbled. Grateful was more the word he’d use; he was also wired for sound, the flight from San Francisco having lasted for a disgustingly long amount of time. And Sam didn’t fly well under the best of circumstances. He couldn’t imagine why that was. It was almost as though he’d witnessed trauma at a young age or something.

Sam loved his mother just as much as his Dad. Sometimes he thought he actually got his gumption and temper from her as opposed to him; after all, Elle Brody had claws like a wild cat and a low tolerance for nonsense. She didn’t take his side, which Sam supposed was odd for a mother-son relationship. If anything, Ford always tried to back up his boy whenever they were having a family tiff.

The three of them stepped briefly outside. Crisp air stung at Sam’s cheeks. He bowed his head against the chill as he followed Ford and Elle along the stone path to their suite. For five days they would be here, enjoying the sights and the tranquility. Sam glanced up at the mountains behind; that was where real peace and solitude could be found.

Against the inky vault of the sky, the mountains looked truly mighty. Nature always filled Sam with awe, perhaps because he knew how precious it was after all the had nearly been lost. They looked safe, those mountains—a castle not wrought by man, but by the providing Earth. Even the snow, cold as it was, didn’t appear as unwelcoming as some of the things Sam had seen broadcast during those terrible, terrifying times.

Ford held the door of their ryokan open, despite the fact that he was also lugging their bags. Elle and Sam hurried in, Sam casting one last longing look at the mountains overhead. He was at an age where he’d started thinking of a future for himself—and the world had finally gotten to a stage where people actually planned for the future, not wondered if they would live to see it.

“You okay, buddy?”

Sam started and hurried into the shelter of the warm, glowing ryokan. “Yeah,” he said. “Just, y’know…”

Ford grinned knowingly. “We’ll go for a hike if the weather holds out.”

But Sam didn’t want to go for a hike. He wanted to live in the mountains if he could.

Elle stretched and yawned. Nonetheless, she let herself look around. The ryokan was the very definition of cozy. The entrance opened onto the matted tatami room; Sam was rather pleased that none of the screens or pieces of art remotely depicted any of the Titans.

“Good heat,” Ford said as he closed the door behind them. “Thank God. One ryokan I stayed in years ago was below freezing.” He walked across the floor, and Sam trailed behind, wanting to know how to walk like a man. Ford opened another set of doors north of the tatami room. A large, deep set tub of water was set against the floor. The walls were comprised of windows looking out on a snow-over rock garden.

“That’ll be nice for us,” Ford said, glancing at his wife with a smirk.

“Ew,” Sam said, screwing up his face. “Wait til I leave, please.”

His parents laughed again.

Really, all was calm and bright. Sam had his own room, with a comfortable looking mattress on the floor and cotton sheets the likes of which he only dreamed about sleeping beneath. He got into his pajamas, knowing that his parents were doing the same in their own large room. The journey from Stateside had been long and uncomfortable; but as tired as Sam was, he didn’t much feel like sleeping.

Still, attempting to remain awake would only cause difficulties. So he climbed onto the mattress and slipped beneath the warm covers. The lights in the ryokan dimmed; Sam heard his mother walking round the outside rooms, likely responsible for turning the lights off. Her footsteps approached his room, but he didn’t feign sleep. Not when he knew Elle would see through the ruse.

She crouched down next to him, dressed in a long but cozy pale yellow robe. “Make sure you get some shut-eye,” she said.

“I will.”

“Do you need some melatonin for the jet lag?”

Sam shook his head. The supplement would have knocked him out like a light, but the thought of sleep right now didn’t appeal to him. He affected a yawn, just to give his Mom peace of mind.

Elle didn’t appear fooled. “Are you absolutely sure?”

Sam’s temper got the best of him. He rolled over with a half-petulant “I’m fine, already.”

“Alright.” Elle sighed and stood up. “But if you’re bushed in the morning, you better not complain.”

Sam rolled his eyes. His luck would likely involve his mother taking even one single yawn out of context, regardless of how much sleep he got.

“Goodnight, sweetpea.”

“G’night, Mom.”

Elle left Sam’s room, sliding his partition closed behind her. A moment later, Sam heard the sound of her sliding beneath the covers with Ford. Silence settled over the ryokan, and after several lingering minutes of wakefulness, Sam heard the unmistakable sounds of his mother and father sleeping deeply.

He, however, had no such luck. Thoughts kept up a steady march across his mind. He didn’t want to be here, cooped up and warm after the close quarter airplane trip. He wanted to be out there, running through the snow, high among the peaks and rocks of those awe-inspiring mountains.

He wanted to be safe; but he also wanted to sate that ever-growing curiosity that had flourished in him with the magic changes of puberty.

Sam lay beneath his sheets for a long time. Soon he began to feel warm from too much pent up energy.

Certainly the mountains weren’t too far away from the ryokan. He wouldn’t be gone long…just long enough to feel some of that chill air sink into his bones—long enough to wear himself out until he actually slept.

Being the child of a former Marine had left Sam with the ability to move stealthily; it also left him with an understanding of how acute his dad’s senses were, even in sleep. So it was that he made sure to keep his movements evenly paced: he slid his covers from his body as quiet as a feather; and dressed as silently and slowly as he dared, listening for sounds of his parents being roused from their sleep. Only soft grunting snores, and nothing more, indicated that there were even other people in the ryokan.

He pulled his heaviest, warmest jacket over himself, and slipped his boots on. He would only be gone for a few minutes…

On soft feet he padded from his room across the tatami mats, and out the sliding front door. Night lay dominant all around, but everything was lit in stark illumination from the gibbous moon overhead. Stars shone in the blanket of the sky; Sam was confident he wouldn’t get lost.

He crunched softly through the snow. Most of the other buildings were dim, but a few still glowed with pale golden light. He heard gentle music from within one, and saw shadows moving. The occupants were having some kind of party. Sam found that there was something oddly primeval about being out in the darkness and seeing the glow of some place safe and homey—a direct link between modern man and his caveman ancestor’s need for shelter. He wallowed in the feeling, as he had done back in America when he would stay out long after curfew, walking among the safety of his neighborhood and those around it.

This, however, was not San Francisco. This was Japan—older, and far more deeply steeped in culture and history.

A path had been cleared up the mountains closest to the resort. Sam’s knowledge of the language was enough that he could make out “ski hill” as one of the words on a sign near the road. He glanced over his shoulder; amidst the ryokan's, he could easily determine where his own lay.

_Only for a while_ , he told himself as he hurried up the snowy path.

Almost at once the mountains swallowed him, their snowy peaks rising around like the spires of ancient palaces. The windless night made all that surrounded him silent and still—perfect, given the holiday. Upwards and upwards Sam climbed, turning around bends, his face flushed with cold and delight. His legs burned, and his lungs began to ache. At one point he reached a flat plateau, and find himself staring at the metallic sentry of the ski lift. Sam didn’t want to be among industry and modernity—he wanted the ancient, the primitive—wanted to feel lost among true nature for just a little while longer.

He turned away from the ski area, and soon lost sight of the path. His feet carried him over rougher terrain, and he slipped several times. His limbs were to coltish, still growing despite his desire to be a man and done with adolescence before he was even in the thick of things.

High above the moon peered down, curious at what this stray waif of the world was doing out alone so late.

Sam’s cheeks stung from cold, and he began to sweat beneath his winter coat. The peaks grew more forbidding the further down his untraceable route he went. Darkness engulfed the snow; trees that had once offered promise of shelter appeared to him as watchful, impassive sentries.

Just as he thought it would be prudent to turn around and follow his tracks back to the ski resort and then further down to the ryokan, he turned round one last bend in the pass, and froze.

It was as if a dream had intruded upon the fervor of his panic. A vast valley, smooth save for several large mounds of snow in the center, spread before him. Moonlight glowed on the treetops and the virgin snowfall, casting everything there was to see in ghostly light.

Yes. This was what he had wanted. Something beautiful. Something far away from the terror of the last decade of his life. His feet carried him forwards, despite the cold now seeping through his clothes. Already the snow came up passed his ankles, but Sam didn’t much care. He’d never seen anything so serene—so beautiful—as this quite bit of undisturbed land.

All he wanted was to be among it—to say that he’d seen something aside from fear and destruction.

He didn’t pay attention to the sudden slope. Only when the ground disappeared, and he found himself falling down the incline into the valley itself did he realize his great folly in coming out here alone. Pain shot through him as his knee connected with something sharp and rugged beneath the snow.

He came to rest, sprawled three-quarters of the way down the bowl of the valley. Blood oozed from his knee. He tried to move his leg, but the pain was too immense out of the blow. The leg in his pants had torn open; behind him, a trail of shining scarlet blood led back the way he’d fallen. His glasses had, oddly enough, barely slipped off the edge of his face.

A sob, born of pain, fear and frustration, escaped Sam’s lips. Why hadn’t he told Mom and Dad that he was coming up here? Why had he wanted to in the first place? How perfectly stupid was he, to have abandoned warmth and safety and comfort, just for a chance to fulfill some stupid, neo-hippie inclination?

With no one to see or hear, he cried like a lost little kid. The tears froze on his face, and terror scratched at his vocal chords, drowning his sobs as, all at once, he realized that he’d likely die here, either frozen or starved. Mom and Dad wouldn’t know where to look…

After everything they’d survived together, how foolish he’d been to throw it all the way for—

Sam clamped his mouth shut as his more base senses took note of the change in his surroundings. He could feel the snow begin to tremble; heard the mellow rumble as hundreds of feet of something moved nearby.

His streaming eyes landed on the mounds of snow in the middle of the valley, the first of which was less than a hundred feet away. They were moving, and moving fast: rising up and up as if something immense buried beneath them had awoken and chosen to rise…

Which was exactly what proved to be happening.

Sam stared, unable to move or scream or even think as the beast rose to it’s full height. Snow slid from it and back down to earth in droves. Embellished against the light of the moon, Sam could see the Titan in full relief.

A thrill rolled through him, even as base terror seized him once more.

Godzilla.

The King of the Monsters.

Not hide nor scaly head of him had been seen in the years since he and the being known as Kong had ended their feud and called a truce. Many had thought Godzilla dead, but there had been enough sightings for people to believe the opposite.

Now, Godzilla stood before Sam, alive and magnificent and terrible. He shook his immense head clear of more snow, like a grandfather rubbing the last vestiges of sleep from his eyes upon being awoken by his ornery grandchildren. Godzilla stared round, his eyes glowing with intelligent annoyance.

The Titan breathed in through his muzzle…then he turned in Sam’s direction, and looked down—a giant observing the scuttle of the smallest ladybug.

Sam let out a squeak and tried to move; but again, the pain in his leg proved too great to even stand. He trembled, wishing for his father and mother; for God; for anything to save him from—

Air rushed around him; the ground trembled again. Only when he felt warm air on his body did Sam open his eyes. Part of him tethered to the soul of a mortal child wished he hadn’t; the other felt as if he looked upon something truly rare and remarkable.

Godzilla had crouched down, his head inclined towards Sam with nothing at all to suggest hunger. Rather, the king’s glowing gold eyes gazed at the human boy with staggering intelligence. He breathed in again; the corners of his mouth quirked in recognition; had he been able to vocalize, and Sam was certain that Godzilla would have said: _You. I know you_.

Then his gaze slid fraction of an inch to the bloody gash across Sam’s knee. Godzilla’s frown deepened.

Sam heard the ground beneath him scrape. Snow piled around him, and it was only when he felt the oncoming rush of vertigo did he realize what had happened: Godzilla had seized him in one vast claw.

Stunned but filled with sudden excitement the likes of which could only be laid claim to by thirteen year olds, Sam stared at the Titan. Godzilla walked across the valley, towards a broad break in the trees.

“Are you…going to climb down?” Sam asked. Wind rushed in his ears, along with the huffs of Godzilla’s own breaths. Sam wasn’t quite sure, but he thought he saw Godzilla glance at him, his mouth crooked upwards in something like a smile.

_Watch this_.

Sam stared between Godzilla’s claws. From this high vantage point, he saw the meandering line of the Alps, rising across the land like the spine of some greater beast. Down, down below, he glimpsed little glowing orbs of light, and he realized that these were the lights of the resort and ryokan.

Looking even further down, Sam saw that one side of the mountain appeared smoothed away. It reminded him of the tobogganing paths he and his friends made back home whenever it snowed.

Godzilla’s claws curled, forming a cage.

“W-wait!” Sam cried. “Can’t I see?”

Godzilla paused. Once more the human affectation on his face made Sam appreciate just how much of a soul this defender of Earth possessed. He seemed to be debating the merit of acquiescing. A deep rumble in the creature’s chest put Sam in mind of a sigh.

_If you insist_.

Godzilla lifted his hand, reaching behind him to one of his maple-leaf shaped dorsal fins. Excitedly, Sam staggered off the creature’s palm, and straddled the jagged shape. Warmth emanated from it, likely due to Godzilla’s own atomic make-up.

Sam peered around the pale-blue obstruction. He heard Godzilla huff another breath, as if he were doing this against his own will.

_Hang on._

And so, Sam hung on.

It felt like being inside a building toppling earthwards. Cold air rushed passed Sam’s face; he felt dizzy at the sudden change of altitude. But the rill thrill ride began a moment later. Godzilla slid, belly first, down the gigantic track. Snow sprayed all around him, cold and stinging, but Sam didn’t mind. He screamed, but with laughter and inhibition. Several times Godzilla had to bank left or right to avoid colliding with the actual mountainside, and Sam was forced to clutch the fin tighter.

Soon—too soon for Sam’s liking—the land began to plateau. Once more they were in the lowland. Godzilla came to a skidding stop not two hundred feet from the ryokan. Every structure was ablaze with light; they’d likely heard the approach of something monolithic.

Godzilla stood, and slowly walked towards the cluster of buildings. Knowing that his adventure had ended, Sam allowed the Titan to gently pluck him from his dorsal fin. He stayed seated on the creature’s smooth, scaly palm. People were shouting and speaking below, but not in fright. They knew Godzilla wouldn’t hurt them.

Sam saw his mother and father at the head of the group, and felt his heart sink. Hurt or not, they’d be furious. But somehow it seemed worth it, just for the chance to be clutch in the grasp of a being so tremendous.

Godzilla lowered Sam to the ground. Reluctantly, Sam slid from his palm, hobbling so as not to put too much pressure on his leg. Elle and Ford ran forward; Elle was cursing and swearing as she held her son to her; Ford, though was staring at Godzilla in awe.

“In trouble?” Sam asked, grateful in spite of it all to be safe after his fright.

Elle looked at him with the furious love of a mother. “Yes, big trouble,” she said, her voice shaking. “But…not too big…”

Sam nodded, and then joined his father in staring at his gigantic rescuer. Ford’s entire face as rife with the same recognition that Godzilla had shown Sam; and Sam found himself oddly comparing his own father to the Titan looming above them.

Godzilla met Ford’s gaze steadily, and then inclined his great head. He turned; both ground and air shook, but nothing in the vicinity met damage of any kind. The tremors in the earth subsided as Godzilla walked back towards the mountain trail he’d likely carved himself in the past.

When the Titan was a good several hundred yards off, Ford broke the stunned silence of the ryokan’s staff and guests. He cupped his hand around his mouth and yelled, in the booming tone that all father’s worth their salt carried, “THANK YOU!”

Godzilla, now nothing more than a shadowy profile in the distance, let out a brief roar in response.

_You’re welcome_.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it!


End file.
